Was Voss Jewish?

[Terry_Crisp]

There is a mild passing interest in a film project regarding Voss.So far it's just conversation over lunch but there is a glimmer of possibility.(realistically @ one in a thousand)
The issue of Werners backround is an interest.
Can anyone cite a source or reliable reference regarding whether or not Voss was Jewish.
Musciano's biography says his mother sent him to a Lutheran church but the Nazis downplayed him.
I have heard that either his mother or father was Jewish which would explain the Nazis egregious disregard of this national hero but I would like to have something more definate.
Thanks,
Terry

Is the Pope a Catholic? The way the Nazis figured it, anybody with 1/16th Semetic blood was a Jew.
As we told Forumites a couple of years ago, Voss escaped by parachute, defected to Switzerland and ended up running a Studebaker agency in Cleveland.
Let me tell you about the back seat of a 47 Studebaker...

[Terry_Crisp]

Very cute John. Would you please cite your source.

[Ira_Silverman]

Hi Terry:

I've done a little bit of research myself into this subject, and this is the best I can come up with:

In all likelyhood, Werner Voss was NOT Jewish.

The best reference on Jewish fliers in the IGAS is Felix Theilhaber’s JUDISCHE FLIEGER IM WELTKRIEG (Berlin, Verlag der Schild, 1924. 124 pp., illus.)

My ability to read Hochs-Deutsch is not very good, but I also have Adam Wait’s 1988 translation. Approximately 100 Jewish fliers are identified, as are 15 non-flying personnel. Also mentioned in passing are another 30 non-Jewish fliers and 18 nn-Jewish support personnel. At no point is Werner Voss’s name mentioned.

IF only his father was Jewish, it is possible that he was not considered so because his mother wasn’t, for reasons explained earlier on another thread. However, there is no hard evidence to suggest that his father was.

IMHO, the popular reasoning went something to the effect that Voss was from Krefeld, which had a significant Jewish population. His father was a tailor, which was considered at the time a “Jewish” profession. Therefore, Voss was of Jewish extraction.

A weak argument, to say the least.

Also of interest in Theilhaber’s book is a discussion of Jewish fliers who decorated their aircraft with swastikas. Already when the book was written in 1924, the swastika was a symbol of Anti-Semitism, particularly in the Balkans. Mention is made of Fritz Beckhardt’s Siemens-Schukert D.III, as well as a captured French Voisin. Voss’ Albatros was decorated with a white swastika, yet even then no mention is made.

Was Voss half-Jewish on his father’s side? Until more positive proof can be provided, it can only be conjecture.

VBR,

Ira

The source for this nonsense was a thread of about a year ago. All of this was hashed over to the point of nausea. My source for the back seat of a 47 Stude was Joyce C., who lived the drama with your old dad.
When you consider whether Voss was "Jewish" you have to revert to the definitions of the time. This has nothing to do with the "Jewish practice of religion." The Germans were obcessed with their Nordic heritage. When they said "Jews" or "Juden" they refered to people of Semetic ancestry. This was a "race" issue, not a religious one.
When "Jews" complain that they were "Persecuted" by the "Nazis" one has to reply uh-huh. They were not "persecuted" any more or less than Gypsies or members of a lodge of Freemasons. The Masons were often "pure Aryan" but went to the same identical death camps as the "Jews." Therefore, the "persecution" was done for both ancestral and ideological reasons. Those who stood out in a crowd of German people or those who objected to their Nietzcheian philosophy.
Here's another news flash. There are aborigines in Australia who are black and often mistaken for negroes, but they are actually Caucasian. BONE STRUCTURE, not skin pigment determines race. And, boy, am I lucky there! I'm an Armenian, and one of my relatives could easily pass for a negro,because he is very dark complected and has jet black hair, though he was classified by the Nazis anthropologically as an "Aryan," or what is contemporarily called "white" or "caucasian."
As a Lutheran, Voss was, obviously, not "Jewish".
As a Semite...and 1/16 was enough to condemn a person under the Nazi system...but it isn't logical to dismiss Voss'ancestry out of hand without reviewing his genealogical background. Opinion vs a bit of honest research, which most "historians" leave to other authors. And, "Jewish" people have a tendency to classify the whole world population as "us and them." When I was in the army, I was the only non-Hebrew in my organization. All but one of those men classified me as a "Christian" and I am not now nor have I ever been a member of that religion. That lone dissenter classified me, correctly, as a Deist.
So, perceptions are at the root of it all. And, I think that we jawboned the subject to death a year ago on another thread that I posted.
I hate to sound like a broken phonograph record, but an ounce of RESEARCH is worth a ton of conjecture. Produce Voss' family tree and you prove your point. Produce a tailor in his family and you get your suits wholesale.

John

There was a popular saying among the Germans during the Nazi era:

Q: What does every German want for Christmas?
A: Gentile grandparents.

The Spectator

I remember another (crude, insulting, racist, in bad taste) joke from the Nazi days: Two Germans were watching a squadron of ME's streaking toward a flight of B-17's. "Look how fast they go!" one German exclaimed.
"Nowhere near as fast as a kike on a bike in the Reich!" the other replied.

[Terry_Crisp]

Ira, John et al.
Thank you all for your replies. I believe that will be enough ammunition to convince my associate.I personally feel that a persons race or ethnicty is among the greater nonissues of our time. There are far more worthwhile and interesting issues to concern ourselves with.Lets move on.
Thanks again,and best regards,
Terry

[Mac]

Elvis says he saw Voss go into a Synagogue (The Observer would spell that Synagog, Ginger would write asynagog)

[rammjaeger]

Terry,

I was just discovering this site:

http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/wwi-0599/msg00413.html

If Peter Kilduff was never finding something about Voss´Jewish descent than the whole story is really nonsense. (I shared this misbelieve until now.)